Microsoft Showcase: Gears of War 2

The story behind Gears of War 2 goes like this: Six months later, things have been pretty good since Marcus Fenix decided to super-light bomb the hell out of the Locust Horde. Since then, things have been quiet. It looked like humanity could recover until the Locust came back in full force.

They have taken down cities and threatened mankind’s last bastion on Sera — a place called Jacinto. Now, it’s up to Fenix to take the fight to the Locust and that’s where the demo took place. Designer Cliff Bleszinski was at the helm and I have to say watching him blast through Gears of War 2, the man is a master at his own game.

You could tell he put it through the pace a couple of times because he knew where every Locust would be, where every Corpser would pop up and where each Brumak would charge. It was really remarkable, and watching him play it was like looking at full-motion video. The man doesn’t make mistakes. He played the game like he was freaking perfect.

But that’s beside the point, what Bleszinski mentioned a lot was that Gears of War 2 was bigger, better and badder than the original. How bigger was it going to be? He said the single-player campaign was going to be longer and that it would go into new locales that include a snow stage and a Locust hive. He said 30 percent of it takes place underground.

How is it going to be better? Well during the demo on the derrick, players can see their old buddies from Delta squad, including Cole and Carmine, yes, somehow he made it through the first one. The action is faster paced and it’s just as dramatic as the last game. In the second level, players will have to knock down giant derricks that have been hijacked by locusts. You fight bigger enemies and have new weapons like a burst pistol.

How is it badder? Well, Bleszinski says the story is darker and there are more execution move and a new technique where players can shoot a Locust on the knee caps, grab it and use the creature as a human shield. I didn’t know Fenix had that sort of agility.

Some of the newer enemies you battle is the Brumak, pictured above. The best way to describe it is a rankor with a rocket launcher strapped to its back. This thing can definitely kill sharks with lasers.

Overall, the game looks chock full of what Bleszinski promised. It carries on the things that made the first Gears of War so good and polishes things up a bit more. It looks like more of the same, but coming from Epic, that may not be so bad.

The designer says that he said the franchise would be a trilogy. As always, he’s taking a wait-and-see approach. But if I were a betting man, I’d put a couple of bucks down on seeing more Gears in the distant future.